The Levi problem for Riemann domains over Stein spaces with isolated singularities (Q2458825)

The authors prove the following interesting result: If \(X\) and \(Y\) are complex spaces with isolated singularities and \( p: X \rightarrow Y\) is an unbranched Riemann domain such that \(X\) is a Stein space and \(p\) is a Stein morphism, then \(Y\) is also Stein. One may first suppose that \(\text{Sing} (X)\) is consisting of only one point, then consider \( \pi : \widetilde{X} \rightarrow X\) a resolution of this (unique) singularity. If a complete Riemannian metric \(g\) on \(\widetilde{X}\) is fixed and \(\delta\) denotes the induced boundary distance on the Riemann domain \(p_{1} : Y \rightarrow \widetilde{X}\) , for each \(\varepsilon >0\) define the set \(Y_{\varepsilon}:= \{y\in Y: \delta (y) > \varepsilon\}\) (which may not be supposed Stein, in general). The main tool for the proof is the construction of \(\mathcal C ^{2}\)-functions \( \phi_{\varepsilon} : Y_{\varepsilon} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_{+} \), which are Lipschitz, with bounded from below Levi form and each one is a vertical exhaustion function on \( Y_{\varepsilon}\). Several generalizations are also presented.